Pep talk

I got a pep talk today. It told me what I didn’t have to do. It was wonderful.

Liz Strauss started off SOBcon with three simple statements about building relationship, about building business, about building community. And all three of them are about what we can’t do.

• You can’t be Oz.
• You can’t stay inside the building.
• You don’t want to build the Coliseum.

Why are can’t statements positive? Because they tell us what we don’t have to worry about. We don’t have to worry about maintaining the big image on the screen. We don’t have to worry about hiding behind our desk, our job, what we do for money. We don’t have to have to build a monument.

Instead, we can build community. We can build people. We can just walk down the sidewalk, the hallway, the street and…walk.

There’s way more to Liz’s story. Someday she’ll tell it. In the meantime, I’m grateful she didn’t tell us what we had to do.

She cut us slack.

And that’s pretty inspiring.

i want a really simple computer

Yesterday I said, “Jon Swanson hates computers.”

I need to explain.

I spend time helping people understand why their computers don’t work the way they want them to work or the way they think they should work or the way they have been told they will work. I spend time with people who still like the version of the Bible software they started using 10 years ago. I talk with people who started using their computers when their kids said, “It’s simple. You just do this.” I spend time with people who watch their computers get slower and hear a commercial for backup software or speed-fixing software from someone who they trust on social or political subjects and they try it.

I spend time with people who just want to send emails to their grandchildren or look at pictures on their digital cameras.

And these people are frustrated by changes and improvements and upgrades. And they ask me for help.

I don’t know how to help them.

I know a lot, I suppose, about computing, having been in the business since 1974. However, I don’t understand all the strategies that engineers and marketers and coders use to improve the experience and get people to buy more. I don’t know how to make that feature work, or, perhaps, I just would never add that feature or that application or that protection.

Or maybe I do understand those strategies. I know that they happen because software engineers and software companies want to stay in business and that means creating versions x.xx. And I know that they are often designed to improve featurality, without enhancing functionality for people who need something as simple as writing a postcard and putting it in a mailbox or taking a roll of film out and handing it to the processor.

Over and over I run into sales-based upgrades, written in the language of people who want cool.

Enough fussing. If you are writing for the new, more power to you. But please help me with my friends.

I want to hand my friends a computer

• that runs quickly the software that worked great with Windows 3.1 (or maybe XP).
• that emails simply and spam-free.
• that explains who really needs Carbonite and who doesn’t (even though 43% of computer users lose everything every year), that says that most people don’t need to shove a terabyte of information through a USB 1.0 in a local backup situation
• that explains that putting your name on all those really interesting email lists means that you will get a lot of email.
• that writes back to friends who repeatedly hit <reply all> when sending out cute stories.
• that slaps any peer, child, grandchild or me anytime that person says, “It’s simple, you just do these three things which I will now adopt from nuclear physics and pronounce in mandarin, which I don’t understand either but I’m sure worked on my computer which is completely different from yours.”
• that actually does allow the person to plug any digital camera into the computer and look at the pictures. Or that shows how to take the card out of the camera and put it in a slot for viewing.
• that refuses to pretend to work with dialup, or automatically downshifts for dialup.
• that works.

I want simple equipment, like the computer for every child.
I want simple software, like nothing I know.
I want simple explanations, written by people who understand metaphors.
I want simple incentives. “You can talk with your grandchildren”

Here’s what I know. I’m calling for people to commit themselves to helping not technical people. Not to help them become technical, to help them communicate.

Please tell me that there is an old-person’s computer. I have homes for several of them. One of those homes could be your grandmother’s. The one you keep having to do tech support for.

what has surprised you?

Hope is finishing her first year of college this week. This morning she turned in a couple of writing portfolios. Wednesday she has a couple exams. And then I bring her home.

She was home this weekend for her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s bridal shower. As we drove back to Bethel yesterday afternoon, I asked questions. It’s what I do.

“What have you learned this year that has surprised you?”

She was quiet as she started thinking. I was, too. I realized that is it a much better question than I intended.

She is in college. She is taking classes. Everything there is supposed to be about learning.  But much of our learning in those settings fits with what we already know. It’s an extension of ideas, it explains what is behind the scenes.But it isn’t exactly surprising. When we attend conferences, when we hear webinars, when we read books and RSS feeds, we are often extending what we already know.

I worked in that world for many years. As I think about it, I’m not sure how many times in those years I had students say, “Wow! I never saw that coming!” At least not about anything I said.

But I’m thinking that learning that shakes us up, that challenges our assumptions, that makes us rethink is learning that surprises us. We listen to someone talk, we find ourself in a situation, we wrestle with ideas, and suddenly something clicks.

“Wow! I never saw that coming!”

Hope, by the way, had an answer. We talked for a long time.

But you, as you look back on the time since September 2009, what have you learned that surprised you?

And if your answer is “nothing”, does that surprise you?

Should it?

What’s stopping you?

Who is sending the hostage note?

What distractions am I creating?

What am I doing with the part of my attention that I get to direct?

Just letting you join in the question I’m wrestling with right now.

flowers for his birthday

I’ve never bought flowers for my dad’s birthday. Truth be told, I’m not sure I’ve ever bought flowers for my dad. But today he turns eighty, and I think it’s probably about time.

Why flowers? Because I ordered them from Scheffler’s.

By the time Dad was born, Scheffler’s had been selling flowers for 20 years. Of course, it would be another forty years before their paths would cross, Bert Scheffler and Arnold Swanson.

I have no idea what happened during those years to the flower business. I do know that Dad lived in Big Fork, Minnesota, lost his dad, moved to Minneapolis, almost lost his life in Korea, found a calling from God, found my mom, found three kids, and found himself in an office in Wheaton, Illinois in 1967, working for an organization called Christian Service Brigade.

That office was about three blocks from Sheffler’s Flowers.

Sheffler’s had a greenhouse and a flowershop. They weren’t fancy but they were always busy. And they always had what they called a bargain bouquet. Or at least that’s what dad always called it. (And he needed a bargain in those days.)

I’m guessing that the bargain bouquets were the odds and ends at the end of the day, gathered together and wrapped for the guys who wanted a quick bunch of flowers to take home. For dad, it wasn’t about guilt or wanting to make up for some offense, it was a necessary extravagance. His way of expressing love (his love language) is gift giving. And taking my mom flowers, once a week, in the middle of winter, was his way of saying, “I love you, Ardis.”

For years, he got her flowers from Schefflers, often commenting that Bert himself had been willing to work the counter. (That was dad’s way of saying that a good manager is willing to serve.)

I’ve been gone from that area for nearly thirty years. Scheffler’s has a new store a couple towns one direction and mom and dad live in an adjacent town the other direction. It’s not far in distance, I suppose, but too far and too much traffic to get there often. But I thought, this year, that flowers from Scheffler’s would be a good way to thank dad for what he’s taught me about love and about leadership and business integrity and relationship — and about flowers.

Happy Birthday, Dad. Enjoy the flowers. I hope they are the right kind.

Oh, yes. And thanks for teaching me about stories. This one is for you.

What if.

What if…

That’s the beginning to five questions I asked two groups to write over the weekend.

A couple weeks ago, Don Miller invited people to quickly write five “what if” statements on a notepad. Not the kind of “what if” statements that end with “she hadn’t left” or “I had studied harder” or “I hadn’t taken that last piece of cake.” Those are about regrets, about things that can’t be changed. They are the kind of statements that lead to “what if I spent the rest of my life wishing that hadn’t happened.”

Miller was inviting us to ask the kind of “what if” questions that make this “the single most powerful question you can ask,”  the kind of “what if” that a novelist asks when writing about a character: What if Dick and Jane get bitten by Spot on the way to the playground? What if Andrew asks Allie to marry him?

When we ask that question of our lives, it can change things:

• What if I write a book?
• What if I get up early every day?
• What if I can’t use my hands anymore?

Those questions can lead to actions, to plans, to changes, to choices.

I liked the idea. I didn’t do anything with it. Until he challenged me (and everyone else who reads his blog) with the “What if” challenge. So I made the group I lead on Saturday night and the class I teach on Sunday morning take the challenge. I read his post. I gave everyone note cards. I gave them time. And they answered. (The three “What if” examples came from those groups. )

For the larger group, the class on Sunday, I gave some help:

• What if I finally…
• What if I really believed that …
• What if I didn’t worry about …
• What if I asked …

Both conversations were great. I’m looking forward to hearing what happens next. We’ll be asking again in our group this Saturday. Because that’s the real challenge.

To find out what happens if you lose thirty pounds. Or you say “I’m sorry.” Or you invite everyone over for a couple days.

You in? What if you were?

5 questions with Mike – autism awareness month

A few weeks ago, Nancy and I had lunch with Sue and Greg.

That’s no big deal, I suppose, except for the fact that they live in Ottawa and were traveling fourteen hours to Indianapolis and stopping for lunch.

In the course of lunch, I asked them what they knew about autism. After the odd look, I explained that I was trying to learn about autism for Autism Awareness month. They answered what they knew and then said, “You need to talk with Mike.”

Sue introduced us. And I’m very grateful she did.

This is my “5 questions” interview with Sue and Greg’s friend Mike:

1. When you describe yourself, are you someone who is ____ or someone who has ______? Or is that a distinction that matters?

I describe myself as someone who “has Asperger’s”, and I think the distinction is very important.  When I was first diagnosed, I became very depressed.  I had always felt apart from the rest of the world, as if I was stranded in a different culture and though I couldn’t understand what was really going on, my only choice was to smile and try to fake it as best I could.  Being diagnosed seemed like a sentence of sorts.  “Don’t bother trying.  You’ll be this way forever, anyway.”

I talked to a friend of mine about it, and he pointed out that while Asperger’s most certainly accounts fro some of my personality quirks, so do my parents, my interests, and even my friends.  Saying ‘I am Autistic’ rather than ‘I have Autism’ implies that Autism is the whole of myself, the only thing worth knowing about me.  I have far more to offer someone than a condition.

2. Susan said that you were diagnosed as an adult. Does having a diagnosis feel like it created a barrier “Oh, you have ____.” or that it provided an open door “Finally, I understand what’s going on.”

A little of both.  Being diagnosed explained much of the problems I’ve had my entire life.  My awkwardness, my tendency to forget about people if I don’t see them regularly, and the like.  It was a bit of a load off at the time.  Most people’s first reaction to someone who does these things isn’t “He must be Autistic”.  It’s usually more along the lines of “He’s a jerk”.  Being diagnosed helped people, myself included, realize that it’s not always in my hands.  That said, I still have it, and it’s a struggle everyday to fit in.  I oftentimes have to mentally plan social situations to a level Batman would be proud of, and it can be exhausting.

3. Do you ever wish that you had known sooner? How would that have made your life different?

I wish that every day.  It would have definitely helped with many relationships, especially with girlfriends.  That, and jobs.  Turning the crazy level of focus I can muster in different directions than what I tended to focus on could have really helped in my early years.

4. Do you want to be an expert on Asperger’s or do you want to be an expert on you living your life doing lots of things, with Asperger’s being one of the things that is part of your life?

I want to be an expert on lots of things.  I want to be fluent in another language.  I want to know everything there is to know about quantum mechanics.  I want to get a black belt in a martial art.  I could really care less about the ins and outs of Asperger’s.  Knowing more about the condition doesn’t help me deal with it any more than being an oncologist helps you deal with having cancer.  Knowing that this is a condition, something that must be accepted and worked around, rather than something that can just be ‘trained’ out of me, is all the information that I really need.  The rest is just knowing what I have to do to mitigate my problems.  My wife is more into the different aspects of Autism, mainly in hopes of finding a cure.  I’ll stick with just being an expert on living my life.

5. As you look at other people living their lives, thinking themselves normal, complaining about not accomplishing anything, sitting watching TV all the time, is Asperger’s in any way an asset for you? (A very odd question, I know.)

Asperger’s can be a tremendous asset at times.  I like to think of it as being ‘min-maxed’.  For those who have never played a RPG, let me explain:  Say, you’re designing a car.  You have to take several factors into account, including comfort, speed, traction, and reliability.  You can balance those things, or you can build the worlds fastest car.  It might not be as comfortable, or a tight in the turns, but it’s the fastest thing on four wheels.  Normal street driving is out of the question, but that car can be very effective in a drag race.  That’s how I’m built.  I may not be the life of a party, but if you need something figured out, I can fix it faster than most in my position can.  I can muster a level of focus most can’t.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m rarely happy that I have this condition.  It’s just that, thankfully, it can be rather useful in certain situations.

Thank you, Mike.

awareness isn’t expertise, and needn’t be

It’s Autism Awareness month. I’ve been planning to write about autism. The month is half over. I’ve written twice: once to say “I’m writing” and once to say “Here’s what I think I know.” The comments on those posts have taught more than the posts.

I have a list of related posts, germs of ideas, things I want to find out. But, it seems, other projects and responsibilities intrude. I can’t do the research that I would like to do be offer answers here, to have great insights.

I wanted, for example, to find out what it is like when autism is part of a family. What’s it like to be a mom, for example?

Katie Donahue Bevins answers those questions, writing as a poet.

I dragged Sean into the house, his voice screeching, saying over and over,

“I want a new Mommy!”

All I could think was, “Good luck with that. You’re stuck with the one you’ve got.”

From brothers.

Chantal Sicile-Kira answers those questions as an “author, speaker, autism expert:”

When he was little, it was very hard figuring out how to reach him, how to teach him basic skills. Nothing seemed to work for Jeremy as it did for other children with autism. I had to quit my work (in TV and film production) in order to teach him and to do physical therapy exercises with him every day.

To this day, although he has proven how smart he is, his motor skills and sensory processing challenges are such that he requires supports for many aspects of every day life. We are working on helping him become as independent as possible, by trying different therapies to work on motor skills and sensory processing.

from “Autism mom shares her knowledge”

Tammy Lesick, answers these questions by getting autism posts from people like Katie and Chantal on her site, “autismlearningfelt.com“

I wanted to offer insight, that is, until I realized that awareness isn’t about being an expert, about having the most profound insights. Sometimes being aware is about stopping long enough to notice.

These moms are worth noticing.

The importance of story in your life

I can’t do it, Chris. You want me to write a quick post about the importance of story in my life. And I can’t do it.

Because a good post would link to a couple places that I’ve talked about story, like the time I talked about my friend Richard who gave me permission to tell Just yesterday stories or about my addiction to story. Or I’d have to link to places I’ve told stories, like the one about the social media chaplain or about being back in a college classroom or about my dad and the VA. Or I’d have to link to stories I’ve retold about Jesus and his stories, like the one about Jesus and prostitutes or Jesus and farming or Jesus and walking away from fame.  But there are too many of those kinds of posts.

And to write a post I would have to stay focused, but I got interrupted to look at the way our intern picked 15 photos out of a couple hundred to tell the story of a group from our church that built a whole house in a week in Kentucky (just like Extreme Home Makeover). And then I had to tell her a couple stories about my experience with chemistry in college and life to help her get around to doing her chem homework.

So there is no possible way for me to write a quick post about story and my life. And yet, Chris, you want us to write about the importance of story in our lives so that we can get a free copy of  A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. After I wrote My previous review I gave the two review copies away and bought a couple more and those are gone and I’m cheap. I want another copy of the book so I can give it away.

But now I have to write something about story to get it and I’ve got nothing new.

Unless it’s this: the importance of story in my life is that my life is in Story. And not just stories, Story. A love story, arcing across millenia, threading through me. It’s the blood in my veins, giving me life. It’s the path of my thoughts. It’s all I’ve got.

Is that good enough, friend?

—–

You can probably get a copy of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life from Chris Brogan by writing a post about story and linking to The Importance of Story in Your Life. Or, if he gives me one, I’ll give it to you if you don’t have a blog to write in.

Because people without blogs have stories, too.

never too good to revise

A friend and I are working our way through Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. We meet most weeks. We talk. I blog.

We both have preview copies. His, the one on the left in the picture, is a “pre-release galley,” distributed at a conference with a promise of the final copy. Mine is an “uncorrected proof,” sent to bloggers and others.

Twice so far (through chapter five), I’ve been reading ahead of him and have said, “this story is a key story.” I’ve told him about these stories (and the principles they illustrate). I’ve told other people about them. I’ve had my thinking shaped by them. These two stories are huge.

And twice Chuck has said, “I don’t have that story.”

In his “pre-release galley”, the principles are taught, but these two stories the Heath brothers used are far less vivid. There is something about the story of chocolate chip cookies and radishes, and the story of Attila the Accountant that are memorable, tellable. Sometime in the last round of revisions, after the book was already being passed around to other people, these guys made it better.

Here’s the lesson for me: you are never too good to revise what you write.

I love to finish a draft of a post and hit publish. I don’t like the idea of rereading, of revising, of throwing something away and finding something even better. And then I think of two guys who write as well, who sell as well, as the Heaths, and I think “I’ll bet they never have to revise.”

And now I have this proof that they do revise. And that it makes things better.

Bother. I’m going to have to switch.